This DIY jumpsuit with wide legs is super simple to make. Drafted from the Christine Jonson Wide Leg Pants and sewn with an attached tube top is a very fast-to-make and easy, elegant weekend look.

Sewing this fun, comfortable and easy-to-wear garment is easy. You’ll need your choice of knit pants pattern. The one I’ve selected is Christine Jonson’s Wide Leg and Taper Pant. This pant has a choice between a wide leg (shown here) and a skinny pant. If you want a skinny pant under a bandeau top, go for the slim leg pant, if you want a wide one, like I have on, go for the wide.

Christine recommends that you chalk around your pattern pieces, remove them and then cut them out. I highly recommend it, as you’ll be able to adjust the width of the leg at the hem. This pant (even in a wide leg) has a slight taper, and I prefer it to go straight down from knee to hem.

This pant has no side seam, and neither does the bandeau top, so it’s a perfect match up.

To begin, you need to calculate the bandeau top dimensions. The reason for this is that the bandeau top is a rectangle and your pants are not. So mating up your pants top to the bandeau bottom is best if they are the same width (you’ll see photos in a moment.)

I’m marrying the wide leg pants to a bloused tube top. The tube top’s width is determined by your full bust size – mine’s 36 inches and to create some ease, I’ve added 4inches to this width (2in. each side) for 40in., plus seam allowances, to 42in. You might want MORE ease, so just add more to your full bust measurement. I’ll be using a center-back seam on the tube top. Measuring from my high bust to my waist is 15 inches, so I’ve added 6in. to this measurement to account for the waistband seam allowance, a casing for elastic at the top and blousing. My finished flat pattern measurements will be 42w” x 21h. If you want to be sure you have enough blousing, cut this longer and you can always hem the casing at the top shorter when you get there.

In measuring the flat pattern waistband top of the trousers, the size 12 is 38 inches across. I tapered out to a 14 for my slightly wider waist, but you can still see that 42 inches married to 40 inches means I ‘ll have to add 2in. to the waistband (you’ll be gathering this later with elastic casing.)

As you can see at left, pants, (back) and tube (back) are ready to be sewn together. I have also provided a drawing of this part of the instructions as well.

To do this sewing together AND making a casing at the same time, you will mark the actual waist line of the pants on to the right side of your fabric (see the dashed line on the drawing). Then, you’ll flip the tube so it’s right sides against the right side of the back of the pants. You’ll actually be laying the seamlines together but NOT the raw edges – you could just match up the raw edge waistbands here too and sew a 1.75″ seam allowance, trim away one layer and then fold that up as the casing, but I actually lowered the tube down so it’s seamline matched up with the drawn waistband line on the pants as shown in the drawing.

Once sewn, you’ll now have a big seam allowance with which to create a casing, so fold that up on the inside, enclosing the raw edge from the tube top part of the garment.

Pin the casing down from the right side of the fabric. Stitch along the pin line, leaving an opening to insert elastic on the back side of the jumpsuit.

In the photo at left, you can also see I’ve folded the top tube casing down for stitching as well as pinned the waistline casing from the outside. Turned under 1/4″ and then 1.25″ (I’m using 1″ wide elastic). You can topstitch that down too, leaving an opening in the back for inserting elastic.

Casings done, it’s time to insert some elastic! Cut elastic to your high bust measurement – this is above your full bust where the top of the tube will rest. Snug it up comfortably, you won’t want this to slip down, but you also won’t want it to be too tight.

Cut your elastic, thread it through the casing and stitch it together before stitching the opening closed.

For the waist, measure a piece of elastic around your waist plus 1″ overlap on each end. Again, snug, but not too snug. You’re not holding up the pants with this (that’s the high bust casing) but you are looking to add definition and sag at the waist = bad. Thread the elastic through, overlap the ends, sew the elastic then sew the casing shut.

You’re almost done!

Hemming tips: I measure a pair of well-fitting pants and do a press-and-pin to that inseam measurement to try them on with the shoes I think I’ll wear. I tend to wear flat shoes most often, especially in summer casual wear, so I hemmed mine with a deep 2.5″ hem straight stitch. Because these are wide legs, I do not need stretch at the hem. Skinny legs, though, you’ll want to use a stretch straight stitch or zigzag or twin needle hem for stretch over your ankle.

That’s it! Slip on the jumpsuit, add some fun jewelry, grab a bag and go!

I also frequently blog about fashion for breastfeeding mothers, and this one is a perfect match of style plus baby feeding friendly. If you feel more comfortable, drape a scarf across your chest (but not over baby’s head) as you nurse to cover your cleavage. I didn’t like to feed my babies under a cover, and they didn’t like to eat under one either.

I’ve had this on my must-sew list for at least a year. I wanted to make one for last year spring break, but ran out of time. This year, I planned ahead (and I sew more now), and it’s done, a full 10 days in advance. That’s the new me 😉

I love this top for several reasons – first, it’s very on-trend with the off-the-shoulder look. I made this in a gifted-to-me super light cotton lawn that is gossamer thin. The fact that it’s cotton is it’s only saving grace – in silk, I’d have drunk the entire keg of beer just trying to sew it. The cotton behaved well with a hot iron and some serging.

The pattern goes together very easily – the instructions are clear, and even though I charged ahead and sewed the fronts and backs together at the shoulder seams (like a raglan tee), I did note later in the instructions, that I wasn’t supposed to attach the front sleeves til I was ready to connect the flat, interfaced front band to the elastic-cased back band. It was simple enough to pick out about 2″ of seam and sew it back up once the neckbands were sewn on. I did read them first, I just missed that part. There’s a lot of “If you’re doing A, skip to 7” and things like that, so I missed the part about not sewing on the front sleeves til later.

This top has a shelf bra! Yes, you heard that, a shelf bra is built into the design of this top – there’s a stretchy white bra under this, so I won’t have to wear a strapless bra (who loves those? no one.) I used white ITY for the built in bra. You could sew some cups in there, but I don’t really need them.

I ended up making the back of the top longer than the front, quite inadvertently. I knew from other reviewers of this on the HotPatterns sewing club on Facebook, that petite people had shortened this top. I wanted to wear it with shorts (see below) and not have it look like I wasn’t wearing pants. So I shortened the pattern by folding it up before the hem makes it’s curve – but apparently, I was not even in my fold-up on the front and back (and fortuitously, it was the back that was longer.) Sometimes happy accidents happen. I’m going to actually measure that out and mark the pattern with a slash and tape to make it shorter next time.

I’m showing this with some of my capsule wardrobe for the spring break trip (six days, no laundry facilities) – the shorts are ones I bought at H&M in an emergency “how’d I gain weight?” in Europe this summer, after the shorts I brought with me were suddenly too small. And they’re snug-ish, but I’m working on that. I am wearing them as well with wide leg Perfect Pants from Christine Jonson Patterns.

I love this top, it was very easy to construct, and with the number of light cotton lawn prints in my stash right now, I’ll definitely be making a couple more of these. There’s a tie-sleeve version (seemed like a guacamole catcher to me) which I might try for my next version. There are also front pockets which I will also try in a future version. I did NOT make a muslin – in HotPatterns, I generally get a good fit right out of the envelope with tops (pants, I do have to muslin and adjust.) Besides, with a large stash, a good deal of it things gifted from friends, I really have wearable muslin fabric to work with. And a lot of it.

I highly recommend this pattern. It’s easy to sew, there are nice details and it’s very fashion forward. I’ll replace these images with pool and beachside ones once I’m on spring break!